The new documentary opening nationwide Aug. 4, is likely to energize people who want to stop global warming, just as the original did a decade ago.

By Jody Feinberg/The Patriot Ledger

Climate change skeptics attacked Al Gore and the film “An Inconvenient Truth” in 2006, and they may denigrate the new documentary, “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.”

But the film, opening nationwide Aug. 4, is likely to energize people who want to stop global warming, just as the original did a decade ago.

“We intended for the film to leave viewers with hope, despite Trump,” said co-director Bonni Cohen, taking over for Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim. Cohen (“The Rape of Europa”) and co-director Jon Shenk (“Audrie & Daisy”) stopped in Boston earlier this month to promote the film, which was the closing night selection for the Nantucket Film Festival.

“Yes, global warming has gotten worse, but now it’s in our power to make change and there are all these significant ways to do that,” Cohen said.

The documentary is a dramatic call for action, based on the increase in both weather calamities and affordable solar and wind options. It’s also a compelling portrait of the former vice president and 2000 presidential candidate. For nearly two decades, Gore has devoted himself to finding solutions for what he called “the most serious challenge the global community has faced.”

Beginning in 2015, Cohen and Shenk followed Gore around the world as he met scientists, visited flooded neighborhoods in Miami and melting glaciers in Greenland, and led his Climate Leadership Training programs.

In the lead-up to the Paris climate agreement, they documented Gore’s innovative deal-making, which was crucial to its passage. After Trump withdrew last month (making the United States one of only three nations to deny it), Gore compared it to “a punch in the face” and urged people to make their voices heard.

“There never has been a more important time to speak truth to power,” he said. “If Trump refuses to lead, the American people will.”

Rather than a politician or a policy wonk, Gore comes across as a very relatable, impassioned ordinary citizen, albeit a politically savvy and articulate one. With the filmmakers, he was charming and warm, Shenk said.

“Gore’s life is an incredible metaphor for what one does with despair,” Shenk said. “I could easily imagine that he would have given up (after the Supreme Court ruling that gave George W. Bush the presidency). But we were really blown away by how hard he works. He’s constantly on the road and deeply committed.”

Given that “Inconvenient Truth” won an Academy Award for best documentary and was a box office and critical success, the sequel should have a ready audience. Cohen said the 2006 film was “a lightning rod” for raising awareness of global warming. She said she expects the sequel to arouse a sense of urgency based on the speed of change since 2006 – in both global warming and the economic viability of alternative energy.

“The main difference is that Mother Nature is showing us the effects of global warming and the solutions are here now,” Cohen said.

Global warming examples in the film are numerous, including more intense storms, floods, fires and heat waves. Fourteen of the 15 hottest years have occurred since 2001, with 2016 being the hottest. In 2006, skeptics attacked the film for projecting flooding in Lower Manhattan. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy flooded the 9/11 Memorial construction site and surrounding area. In Miami, Gore stood with the mayor and residents on flooded streets as high-tide water gushed through manholes and sewers, too fast for pumps to remove.

As Gore surveyed water rushing through melted glaciers in Greenland with a scientist from the Swiss Federal Research Station, the two shared dark humor over whether to compare the glaciers to Swiss or Emmental cheese.

The filmmakers also connected political and social destabilization to global warming. In Syria, masses of rural people left the land during the 2006-10 drought, when high temperatures sucked from the ground the little rain that fell.

In a harsh criticism of the influence of money, Gore said democracy has “been hacked” by climate change deniers and corporations that have funneled money to the Bush and Trump administrations and political candidates. Denying that carbon dioxide emissions have raised the Earth’s temperatures, they have supported the development of fossil fuels and the reduction of environmental protection regulations.

On the hopeful side, the film shows solar energy moving from an “alternative” to a main energy source. That is expected in left-leaning Burlington, Vermont, but it is surprising in Georgetown, Texas, where the Trump-supporting mayor said he wants his city to go solar for economic reasons.

The most uplifting scene is when 150 negotiators joyously posed for a photograph after the ratification of the Paris agreement.

“It’s a new chapter of hope for the world,” said a UN official.

That is especially exemplified by the decision by India to abandon its plan for 400 new coal-powered plants and use solar for electricity. Despite a devastating 2015 flood in Chennai and smog-filled air in New Delhi, Indian officials were convinced they needed coal plants to lift people out of poverty. That changed after intense negotiations by Gore with a California solar panel company and credit providers created a deal that made solar affordable.

The filmmakers acknowledge that it may be impossible to change the minds of some climate change deniers. But the forces for a healthy planet are growing, starting with the 1,000 people around the world trained by Gore and those who may be inspired by “An Inconvenient Sequel.” “The good news is there are more and more ordinary citizens and governments who want to do the work,” Cohen said.

These activists, Gore said, are “in the tradition of every great moral movement that has advanced humankind.”

Jody Feinberg may be reached at jfeinberg@ledger.com or follow her on Twitter @JodyF_Ledger.

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